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upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

Amazon's Prime Air drone delivery fleet gains FAA approval for trial commercial flights – TechCrunch:

Amazon has been granted an approval by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that will allow it to start trialing commercial deliveries via drone, Bloomberg reports. This certification is the same one granted to UPS and a handful of other companies, and while it doesn't mean that Amazon can immediately start operating a consumer drone delivery service for everyone, it does allow them to make progress toward that goal.

[...] Ultimately, any actual viable and practical system of drone delivery will require fully autonomous operation, without direct line-of-sight observation. Amazon has plans for its MK27 drones, which have a maximum 5 lb carrying capacity, to do just that, but it'll still likely be many years before the regulatory and air traffic control infrastructure is updated to the point where that can happen regularly.

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upstart writes:

Amazon Will Pilot Drone Delivery in California This Year:

All sorts of wacky solutions have been proposed for better package delivery, from an underground "hyperloop" network of pipes to swarms of last-mile robots dispatched from mothership vans.

Let's not forget ever-elusive delivery drones. The widespread assumption was that Amazon would be the first to have its packages take to the skies, but as it turned out, Walmart beat them to the punch, piloting drone delivery in North Carolina in 2020.

Now Amazon's catching up. The company announced this week that it's starting drone delivery service in Lockeford, California later this year. South-east of Sacramento in the state's hot, dry Central Valley area, the town had a population of just 3,521 as of the 2020 census. An Amazon press release says the town has "historic links" to the aviation industry thanks to a former resident who built and flew planes there in the early 1900s.

The company doesn't give additional details around why it chose Lockeford for the Prime Air pilot, though the town's rural location, the fact that most customers there have backyards for the drones to drop packages in, and the lack of numerous obstacles you'd find in a more urban or densely-populated area likely all factored in.

[...] On the safety front, among other measures, Amazon has built what it calls an "industry-leading sense-and-avoid system" to keep its drones from crashing into things—things like other aircraft, people, pets, or unexpected obstacles (like, say, a chimney or an antenna). When a drone's sensors detect objects within a certain radius of it, it automatically changes course, and as it descends to drop packages, it checks that the surrounding space is clear.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/amazon-unveils-smaller-delivery-drone-that-can-fly-in-rain/#ftag=CAD590a51e

Amazon on Thursday unveiled the design for a new delivery drone that promises to be smaller, quieter and capable of flying in light rain.

The drone, called the MK30, is due to go into service in 2024, the tech giant said in a blog post Thursday. It's smaller and lighter than the MK27-2, the drone that'll be used to make deliveries in Lockeford, California, and College Station, Texas, later this year.

The new design allows for increased range, expanded temperature tolerance and new safety features, Amazon said.

Amazon helped kick off the drone delivery idea with the 2013 announcement of Prime Air, promising one-hour delivery times for thousands of items in Amazon's warehouses. In 2020, it gained approval for the drones from the Federal Aviation Administration, before scaling back the project the following year.

Its current fleet of delivery drones fly 400 feet above the ground at speeds up to 50 mph carrying packages up to 5 pounds within a range of about 9 miles.

Original Submission